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User blog:CMAN122/Reorganisation of the Category Tree
EDIT: The category tree has been expanded and reworked in some areas. It has not been finished yet. Hey guys, welcome to my blog series about reorganising all important bits of the Need for Speed Wiki that haven't been touched for a long time or at all... Please make sure to check everything mentioned in the Layout section - the paragraphs below are not that important. The last thing I want is to argue with someone just because they didn't pay full attention to this blog. First of all, I finally want to admit not having contributed to this site for years until last month. Since I now have your attention, I hereby apologise to everyone for not taking full advantage of my user privileges as a bureaucrat during that time and not acknowledging the community about my long hiatus before, sth that is expected of an individual in such position. It wasn't due to college work (it is manageable) but rather due to losing general interest in racing games. Now, I cannot promise you guys by 100% that I'll be here forever, but I'll promise you to not let this happen again - if I can't work here anymore, I'll let you know. Now on to why I've started this blog entry series - I want to tie up all loose ends of this wiki. Don't get me wrong though, you can find just about 99% of all essential information about the Need for Speed series. Most articles are well written and structured as a result of good work discipline and editing skills. But obviously this site is not perfect, the foremost being older articles that have not seen much editing for years - this franchise used to be annually released after all. The current category tree most certainly doesn't obstruct the readability or credibility of the wiki in any way. In fact, when looking at the NFS World Car lists, NFS Underground 2 customisation articles and car articles, most categories do their job well. What I am not satisfied with are the categories for general gameplay articles such as Police. Why include game appearance categories if you already have police department pages? I don't think that even the pre-Underground titles really benefit from that, since the police are merely gameplay elements found in certain game modes. There's much more - take a look at the Gameplay category for example, which looks like a random mashup of articles. I also don't think such category is necessary in an encyclopedia dedicated to gameplay articles... As a solution to all of this, I propose creating something that is clearly logically structured and rarely necessitates any major modifications, so we don't have to do such blog posts again... Every subcategory that covers the same topic with another is included under an 'umbrella' main category. Root Category *Need for Speed Wiki **Articles **Images (will be discussed in another blog entry) **Templates (will be discussed in another blog entry) Articles Category 'Characters' *Characters by Game *Crews **Crew Members 'Customisation' *Body **Body Kits **Front Bumpers **Headlights **Rear Bumpers **Roll Cages **Roof Scoops **Side Skirts **Spoilers **Taillights *Customisation by Game (e.g. Customisation in Need for Speed: World) *Paint **Decals **Paint Customisation **Vinyls ***Liveries ***Vinyl Packages ***Vinyl Sets *Performance **Tuning **Upgrades ***Upgrade Packages *Wheels **Rims **Spinners **Tire Treads 'Driving' *Driving Aids *Driving Manoeuvres 'Events and Game Modes' *Events **Events by Game ***Events in Need for Speed... **Events by Mode ***Circuit Events ***Drag Events ***Drift Events ***Pursuit Events ***Speedtrap Events ***URL Events *Game Modes (My Cars, Quick Race, career modes) **Progression Modes by Game 'Games' *Development **Development Studios **Title Differences *Need for Speed Series *Soundtracks 'Locations' *Cities *Locations by Game *Regions *Roads *Shops **Shops by Game 'Powerups' *Cop Powerups *Racer Powerups 'Vehicles' *Cars **Cars sorted by... *Helicopters Proposed deletions *Browse, Gameplay - Afterthought categories *Strategies - Will be replaced by the Driving Maneuvres category. Police driving tactics can be obviously performed by racers, too. *Boss Cars - I don't think the fact that some storyline character drives a certain car is notable enough for the creation of a respective category. Unsure suggestions *NPC Cars - Will be used to replace the undrivable, traffic and police categories. The problem with the police vehicles category is similar to the situation found in the DLC car categories, the category section of several car pages will become messy, the necessitity of such category is questionable as well - some newer NFS titles include an even amount between racer and police cars. I also think that traffic cars are very minor topics of the series, as they were merely designed as track obstructions and to improve immersion if you will. *Deletion of the Race tracks category - Since the category tree will already have game-specific event categories, I don't really think this is necessary. However, when looking at Cars, one could argue that we should have an overview category for race tracks as well. If we do this, there's no reason to do that for customisation parts and other things as well. Future Posts If you have any suggestions or do not agree with something, I'll happily discuss it with you. Before I end this post, here's a list that shows you what else I want to include in on my blog series. If you think we could cover more than what I've listed down here feel free to reply. *Other categories and confusions in the wiki *Manual of Style and wiki conventions *Car articles (yes, that again) Category:Blog posts Category:Reorganisation of the NFS Wiki